One of the things that added some excellent flavor to the original ACKs, and has been honed since, is the ability to create custom spells, with a system in place to design and balance them.
In ACKS II, I believe all summoning spells require the creature summoned to be passively hostile rather than cooperative, which would let you bump it down to a 2nd level spell with that x0.8 modifier. Instead of malicious, with blink dogs that probably reflects their short attention span and being easily distracted, neither obedient nor antagonistic. It would also be constrained to no more than once per day, which gives you a x0.9 modifier and lets you potentially bump the range or duration a bit. A very solid spell either way!
In ACKS II, I believe all summoning spells require the creature summoned to be passively hostile rather than cooperative, which would let you bump it down to a 2nd level spell with that x0.8 modifier. Instead of malicious, with blink dogs that probably reflects their short attention span and being easily distracted, neither obedient nor antagonistic. It would also be constrained to no more than once per day, which gives you a x0.9 modifier and lets you potentially bump the range or duration a bit. A very solid spell either way!